


A Question for All to Answer

by GretchenSinister



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-29 22:54:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18303455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: Original Prompt: "Jack Frost is a spirit of winter, but he’s not the only one. He is only the representation of the fun and jow that can be had during winter. There are other winter spirit far older and far more primal then him. Think of the Russion Winter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Winter AKA General Winter. They are the ones who bring the biting deadly storms. Does Jack know of them, do they meet and fight over how severe a particular storm should be."North sees Jack speaking with General Winter, and when he talks to Jack about it, wonders what it might mean for all the Guardians.





	A Question for All to Answer

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr on 12/15/2014.

When Jack became a Guardian, he and Sandy had persuaded the others that they really needed to spend more time out in the world. For Tooth, this was a return to her former habits, and for Bunny, as the governor of a center and a season, it was not difficult either. But for North? He smiled at himself as he walked along the outskirts of a town. For all his legends, there was little that called for him to wander far from the North Pole, yet wandering now he was.  
  
He doubted he would ever get used to it, but he also knew that this was a good thing. The more he saw of the world, the more fantastic it seemed and the more curious he became, until he began to question how he had ever been satisfied with venturing out only a few nights a year. There was more in the world than he had ever guessed, even with his own self in it. He thought of how long it would take him to see everything and grinned. It would be a challenge, too, for he had also begun to learn that some things could only be seen by a quiet and patient observer. To be that kind of observer didn’t go against North’s center, but it was contrary to how he was used to interacting with the world.  
  
Practicing such observation was the only thing that kept him quiet when he saw Jack speaking to someone in a pine wood one deep winter day.   
  
Just out of sight–for being out in the world not at Christmas had demanded he learn stealth–he watched Jack and the other, and knew at once that what he saw now was one of the strange things he had not suspected before. He was glad he had not broken the moment with a greeting.  
  
Jack was not speaking to one of his believers, but rather a tall, thin man in a uniform clearly military, but not clearly from any particular army or era. Medals covered his chest, and when they clinked together they sounded like icicles striking each other.  
  
After observing them for a few more moments, North realized that they were not speaking to each other in words, though they gestured as if they were. Instead, winds passed between them, fierce and gentle, carrying snow or not. When they let the winds go, some of them passed by North, the coldest he had ever felt.  
  
When Jack laughed, North wanted to smile, because no one else laughed like Jack, but he could not, because this laugh was like nothing he had ever heard from Jack before.  
  
But the man in the uniform smiled, just before disappearing in a swirl of snow.  
  
“North?” Jack called.  
  
Ignoring the impulse to hesitate, North stepped into view. “I am sorry,” he said, “I thought I was being stealthy.”  
  
Jack shook his head as if to clear it. “You were. You were. But I try to make sure I know if anyone else is around when I talk to the General.”  
  
Hearing Jack’s voice in words again allowed North to smile now, a careful smile, not of mirth but understanding. “So General Winter is not just expression either.”  
  
“Exactly,” Jack said, a faraway look drifting in and out of his eyes. With what seemed like a great effort, he brought himself back to focus on North. “We have to…negotiate. He has to ask my permission, so do some others. I always grant it because…we all know winter.” He shivered. “I know what happens in blizzards, North. I don’t like it and I usually don’t think about it. I usually don’t think about it so completely that I forget it until the General or someone finds me. I wasn’t hiding anything before I became a Guardian.”  
  
Jack’s whole demeanor had changed in his brief speech. The eerie dreaminess had vanished, replaced by the nervous radiancy of the Jack North knew. Such transformation calmed North, made him want to slip into his role of mentor to Jack as he had done before, but he had watched and waited too much recently to do just that.   
  
“Jack, the Man in the Moon chose all of you, you know,” North said. “And what I saw was wondrous. I am not angry, but I wonder…what if you did not hide this?”  
  
“Can I be a Guardian and always know that there’s something terrible in what I can do?”  
  
“A question that requires careful watching,” said North. “And one I am curious now to have more than just you answer.”


End file.
